Personality Theory, the Brain and the Personal Unconscious

Updated on June 10, 2010

Early Development, Attractors and the Limbic
Personality

Because brain plasticity—and its capacity
to be molded by experience—is so dynamic in the first two or three years of
life, experiences during this period of time exert pervasive influence on the
developing personality (Schore, 1994, p. 3). The predominant brain structures
in play at this time include the right hemisphere (Geschwind & Galaburda,
1987) and limbic system (Joseph, 1982), between which at this time extensive
neural circuitry already exists (Tucker, 1981, 1992). Of these structures, the
amygdale, situated on either side of the limbic system within the center of the
brain, share a fast track to the brain’s sensory relay station—the thalamus
(Goleman, 1995, p. 18). As a result, the amygdale rapidly communicate negative
and potentially threatening information more quickly than positive information
(Jiang & He, 2006; Vaish, Grossmann, & Woodward, 2008; Yang, Zald,
& Blake, 2007).

Based on additional evidence for prevalent
limbic influence on the personality (Baumeister, et al, 2001; Peeters &
Czapinski, 1990), Waller (2007) theorizes that unmet emotional needs in early
development generate negative emotional experiences, which then leave their
indelible imprint upon the limbic system (p.80). These imprints act as attractors
(a term used in nonlinear dynamics to denote systemic patterns toward which
physical systems tend to evolve), around which the chaotic energy of the limbic
system forms (p. 50), thereby deeply embedding the energetic pattern of those negative experiences into
the limbic system’s neural circuitry (Schore, 2003b, p. 4). Waller (2007)
further theorizes that, because the limbic system is almost fully wired by age
five (p. 35), many years before the higher order cognitive processes of the
frontal and prefrontal lobes come online, and because limbic-mediated emotion
has been shown to be involved in all intentional behavior (Freeman, 2000), these
imprints play a large role in motivation throughout life (Waller, 2007, p. 50).

Waller (2007) views the personality as the
result of unconscious identification with both inherited traits and
environmental conditioning (p. 140), both of which deeply impact neural
development (Mundkur, 2005; Sarnot & Menkes, 2000). When such conditioning
is deeply identified with, it solidifies the experience of a solid self and
personality (Waller, 2007, p. 140). In the early stages of development, the
fledgling limbic system becomes imprinted with the energy pattern left by experiences of both met and unmet
emotional needs (p. 80), giving rise to reactive and goal-oriented motifs that
are eventually and mistakenly identified as the self (p. 140).

Certain Eastern spiritual traditions have
viewed the formation of the personality in much the same way. The Tamil Siddha
tradition, for example, sees the developing personality as an amalgamation of
culturally conditioned neurological responses being unconsciously animated by
the life force (Sadleir, 2003, p. 12). Also known as prana (Krishna, 1997, p. 68), this life force is a somewhat
superficial aspect of a deeper creative power, referred to in yogic traditions
as the kundalini-shakti (Goswami,
2006, p. 237), which unconsciously animates bodily processes, giving rise to
the mental and emotional content of the phenomenal mind (Muktananda, 1978, p.
48), with which an aspect of the underlying consciousness identifies (Sadleir,
2003, p. 12).

The aforementioned limbic conditioning is
theorized by Waller (2007) to give rise to a dialogical self, the ever-active
and automatic self-talk activated by limbic attachments and aversions (p. 65).
By consistently recruiting other brain areas into its employ, Waller speculates
that this limbic-generated, dialogical self regularly hijacks the frontal lobes
and thereby significantly biases perception (p. 50). Identification, in his
view, is seen as taking place by way of the prefrontal function mistakenly
identifying the dialogical self as the locus of the self, since the prefrontal
lobes do not fully develop until long after the voice of the dialogical self
has become active (p. 73).

Waller (2007) further speculates that
various complexes of limbic attractors—each with correlated beliefs, biases,
attachments and aversions—eventually form sub-personalities (p. 140). The
limbic system identity, therefore, is viewed as virtually enfolding itself
around one’s deepest nature, obfuscating it (p. 140). And because the
developmental groundwork for thought and emotion have been laid in early
development, the continued animation of thoughts and emotions—generated through
unconscious energetic processes within
existing neural networks—gives rise to the conditioned mind (Sadleir,
2009, March 10).

The Neurological Origins of the Personal
Unconscious

Based on findings in attachment psychology
(Hofer, 1983; Scheflen, 1990) and interpersonal neurobiology (Tomasello, 1993;
Trevarthen, 1993), Schore (2003b), postulates that, in early development, the
parent’s brain acts as a complementary brain through which the infant brain
downloads important survival programs (p. 13). As this downloading continues,
the infant brain resonantly connects with the parent’s brain, thereby gaining
the available circuitry by which it can organize toward greater levels of
complexity (p. 41). The forming personality, therefore, is largely the product of this
interpersonal downloading process (p. 3), though other genetic, environmental and interpersonal influences undoubtedly impact the forming personality as well..

Godwin (2004) theorizes that, because the
right brain is predominant during this crucial process, left modes of operation
are unavailable for labeling disturbing emotional experiences (p. 112), so that the energy patterns of such experiences are unconsciously stored in the extensive circuitry already
developed between the right hemisphere and the limbic system, making this
system the neural correlate of the personal unconscious (p. 112). This theory
might explain why the unconscious, in Jung’s psychology, is so often associated
with imagery (also associated with right hemispheric function) and
limbic-mediated affect (Miller, 2004, p. 25). The discovery that negative
effect is most associated with right hemispheric activity (Davidson, 1992) may
possibly be explained as the result of this right-originating personal
unconscious.

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